Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Tokyo Auto Salon pits performance autos against hybrids

The world's other big January auto show, the 2010 Tokyo Auto Salon, opened its doors to tuner enthusiasts in mid-month with a record 402 exhibitors. The Auto Salon fuses numerous styles, but the overriding theme this year was hybrid cars, with customized Toyota Priuses and Honda Insights at every turn. Good old-fashioned engine tuning is alive and well in Japan, where even new sports cars are being heavily modified, with cars such as the KRL Mitsubishi Evolution X and the HKS Nissan GT-R both boasting in excess of 600 hp.

Shanghai 2013: Conference and Awards events from CDN and Interior Motives

Can Design News and Interior Motives are gearing up for our annual visit to China for a number of important events in the industry's calendar, kicking off with the 2013 Interior Motives China Conference. This year's theme, ‘Technology and tradition – old meets new in modern-day China' features a new highly interactive format guaranteed to inspire and illuminate. Last year's event – timed to coincide with the run-up to the Beijing auto show – attracted over 400 senior OEM designers and Tier supplier executives from around the world, and this one promises to be bigger and better than ever.

Motorway pile-up 'like pinball'

DRIVERS involved in a fatal pile-up on a motorway entered a "wall of blackness" before suffering numerous impacts as if they were "a pinball machine", a jury heard. Seven people died and 51 were injured after 34 cars collided when a section of the M5 in Somerset was suddenly "engulfed in thick smog". Anthony and Pamela Adams, Maggie and Michael Barton, Malcolm Beacham, Terry Brice and Kye Thomas died in the incident, on November 4 2011.